Should these two be called mad scientists for being so ruthless, even willing to use such a dangerous spell on themselves?
Murphy was somewhat impressed.
But he didn't really support it.
Murphy's stance on human experiments was similar to that on the Unforgivable Curses: usable, but to be avoided unless necessary.
These methods or tools, while being the simplest solutions to current problems, shouldn't be used as standard procedures. If one becomes accustomed to handling things in a simple and brutal manner, the details ignored at the time might accumulate into significant troubles.
This was a realization he had come to only recently.
Whether it was Malfoy's, Kingsley's, or his own defeat in their confrontations, or Joachim's madness, Voldemort's, or Grindelwald's failures, the principle was the same. Relying on just one or two tools or methodologies is hardly enough to adapt to the endlessly changing future.
The so-called unscrupulous means should bring more options, not become a path of stubbornness leading to darkness.
Therefore, he was wary of overly simplified tools, such as the Unforgivable Curses, methods of coercion and intimidation, or the monetary strategies he previously used on wizards.
Regarding the Mind Seed, he maintained the same caution, but the spell was too powerful, practically a cheat tool, and he couldn't possibly give it up.
Using it or not was one thing; having it was another.
"This dangerous spell should not be experimented with on ourselves for now," Murphy said.
Changing human thought is ethically controversial, and it's clear that aside from these two willing madmen, it's unlikely many would volunteer.
But progress in research on mind-related spells is hard without experimenting on consciousness.
He thought for a moment, "There are quite a few creatures with simple intelligence in the wizarding world..."
In the wizarding world, creatures capable of speaking and possessing consciousness were not rare.
Elves, house-elves, centaurs, and even creatures like the Acromantula, capable of conversing with humans, had their consciousness. Although experimenting on elves, centaurs, and similar beings carried ethical risks, there were creatures no one cared if they lived or died.
For instance, goblins, small beings that could speak and had certain intelligent behaviors, were considered pests in the wizarding world, and Murphy had helped wizards deal with such nuisances before.
There were also pixies, gnomes, imps, and devils, like the Cornish pixies used as teaching tools in the original story, creatures with simple intelligence whose cognitive abilities were far more complex than ordinary animals.
Even creatures treated like rats or cockroaches, such as Veela, had simple intelligence.
Or merpeople? They even had their social structures and could domesticate animals, their intelligence not much inferior to humans, but they had no rights in the wizarding world.
In fact, the concept of human rights was not widespread among wizards; they would even sell those afflicted with blood curses as show animals.
Using these creatures for experiments shouldn't lead to accusations of abusing magical creatures, right? Oh, there's a law against "Breeding for Experimental Purposes," isn't there?
Who cares.
Helping them deal with pests can't possibly be illegal.
...
Research on various magical fields steadily progressed, and Murphy was also busily preparing in the Muggle world to manufacture chips.
In March, Camelot Company launched the luxury brand Medusa in France, introducing the Eros perfume series as its first product. There were eight series with a total of 79 products, each named differently by Murphy, with seventy-nine distinct marketing copies crafted by advertisers.
In reality, these were ordinary perfumes mixed with a tiny amount of love potion.
The price was determined by the concentration of the love potion, with one in ten thousand being the low-end product, priced at 2 pounds per milliliter. The mid-range product, with a concentration of three in ten thousand, was priced at 8 pounds per milliliter. The high-end product, with a concentration of five in ten thousand, was sold for 15 pounds per milliliter.
Meaning, Murphy sold one milliliter of love potion for thirty thousand pounds!
To Murphy, this wasn't just making money; it was plundering.
But the love potion was indeed powerful.
Even adding just a drop to a bottle of perfume could provide users with a quite pleasant olfactory experience, subtly sensing a wondrous, almost illusionary anticipation within the fragrance.
High-end perfume users found their charm seemed to be enhanced by the perfume, receiving more admiration and praise.
The mysterious effects of the love potion made Eros perfume immediately popular among the French, then spreading through the fashion capital Paris to all of Europe and then the global Western culture.
Then, Murphy repackaged the Venus series, changing the non-essential plant fragrances and revamping it into Medea's high-end cosmetics series, Helen. The cost remained nearly unchanged, but the price was more than tenfold higher.
The continuous flow of money significantly relieved the financial pressure on the Umbrella Corporation, and the chip factory began its hectic construction.
In May, Umbrella Corporation established "Z-Technology," officially entering the electronics field.
Z-Technology was divided into four departments, responsible for chip manufacturing and research, terminal design and manufacture of electronic products, development of computer systems and basic application software, and internet technology expansion, laying out the development of the electronics field for the next thirty-plus years.
Among these, Murphy was most concerned with chip manufacturing.
This was the core and the biggest bottleneck of the electronics field.
In June, Z-Technology started spending wildly, acquiring Fantasy Technology in the IP core design field and Arm Holdings, which had just been established in Cambridge Industrial Park.
Purchasing this future top player in the chip field cost Murphy only twenty million pounds, even less than another future doomed personal computer field company, Inmos.
In July, Z-Technology spent two hundred million pounds to buy three chip factories from Inmos, along with a subsidiary engaged in IC design.
In August, Isis Pharmaceuticals went public ahead of schedule. With money in hand, Z-Technology directly invested 150 million pounds in ASML, which was still unprofitable, paying off Philips' loans and solving ASML's financial issues since ASM's withdrawal last year.
This investment gave Z-Technology an 85% stake in ASML, becoming its largest shareholder.
In September, with most of the pieces in place, chip research officially began. Half of ASML's staff was transferred to a secret department to develop an unprecedented lithography machine.
Simultaneously, Arm Holdings and Fantasy Technology began designing new IP cores, instruction sets, and processor architectures under Murphy's authorization, aimed at a new type of chip with extremely high integration rates and a 0.3-micron process.
While Murphy stirred up the Muggle world, his infiltration of the wizarding world continued.
One day in September, Murphy visited Malfoy Manor again.